Adventures in Fast Food

Seven burgers, 7 fries and 7 Cokes please---That is not happening! Maybe the real title is Nonadventures in Fast Food.

As you may have gathered we are pretty radical about what we eat. I really believe, and research backs me up, that eating at least 50% of your food raw is the way to stay healthy. Also we eat minimal processed foods. These include white sugar, white flour, anything in a package with ingredients you can’t pronounce. Seriously folks stay away from these foods. “Whole foods” is the trendy term. It mostly means “cooking from scratch” and I’m not talking about opening some cans and boxes and stirring them together either.
So, traveling makes this a little bit of a challenge. I am also a firm believer that with a little creativity most challenges can be met with success.

Last Monday we were traveling home and it was lunch time. I went over the fast food menus in my head. Most places charge an arm and a leg for a wilted stack of ice berg lettuce and a packet of sugar (high fructose corn syrup) filled dressing. Wendy’s has a side salad and baked potato on their dollar menu. That’s a decent option in a pinch. I decide we need to start keeping some EVOO (that’s extra virgin olive oil for those not Rachel Ray fans) and vinegar with us to avoid the packet of hydrogenated oil and sugar. So, if each of us gets 2 items, that is a minimum of $14 plus tax.

If you can find a subway, 3 subs at $5 each will feed our family, if we have an apple with it. It has lots of raw veggies and no sugar. The bread is basically white flour with a little brown coloring in it, I’m guessing, and the cost is $15 plus tax.
So I took my $14 and I went into the grocery store. I grabbed a jar of natural PB ($3.50), a bag of celery ($1), a head of cabbage ($1), a bag of radishes ($1.50), a bag of bananas ($1) and 4 avocados ($4). We cut up the celery and filled it with PB, passed around radishes, gave everyone a banana, and for those still hungry ½ an avocado with salt and pepper. Then we started a movie for them and they munched on cabbage. Lunch and snacks for 7 people, all for $12, very filling and completely raw!

For dinner Thursday night we ran into the grocery store and grabbed some guacamole and salsa. In the camper we had refried beans (our own healthy very yummy recipe) and tortilla chips. Beans, guac, salas and chips make a great dinner. Braum’s sales a very fresh raw salsa and guac is raw also. Beans can be made ahead and frozen, or put in a cooler, with the RV we have a fridge.

Breakfast was a big bowl of strawberries covered in homemade yogurt and drizzled with honey, oats and wheat germ. Then we munched on grapes and carrots while driving through Texas on our way to Albuquerque. We stopped in Tucumcarie, NM for lunch and had celery and raw almond butter Sam made earlier in the week.

I think we are on our way to meeting the challenge very nicely.